


Imagine

by stuffilikeiwrite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Has Issues, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Artistic Liberties, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Darth Vader Has Issues, Darth Vader Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Hurt, I think my point hit home, Jedi Code (Star Wars), Mentioned Ahsoka Tano, Mentioned Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mentioned Padmé Amidala, Mentioned Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Mentioned Shmi Skywalker, Movie: Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Poor Life Choices, Post-Duel on Mustafar (Star Wars), Post-Order 66 (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Sad Darth Vader, Sort Of, but i like how it turned out, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28534233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuffilikeiwrite/pseuds/stuffilikeiwrite
Summary: Youare Anakin Skywalker, and you will live with this knowledge for the rest of your life.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Sheev Palpatine & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23





	Imagine

Imagine yourself spending the first nine years of your life as a slave, with only your mother to guide you. Imagine being owned by another person, imagine being fatherless, struggling to get by in an unforgiving desert working for scraps. Imagine there’s a chip inplanted in your neck, in your mother’s neck, that will go off and blow you up if you run. Imagine living with that threat hanging over you, just one misstep and you or your mother will be doomed. Even when you find a way out, and are freed, she must remain. So, you vow to free her.

Imagine finally being taken away from that place, from your mother and the only comfort you know. Imagine being placed before a harsh, judgmental religious order and told that despite this one male stranger’s conviction that you are special enough to be a part of their convention, you don’t suffice. They condemn you, tell you you're not good enough, and you believe them. Then this man, whom you have begun to latch onto for lack of paternal idols dies suddenly and brutally. The boy he trained, who you clash more often with than not, is instead vowing to take you in.

Imagine meeting a girl with whom you are immediately besotted, imagine memorizing her beautiful face for years despite not seeing her again for a decade. Imagine you trying too hard to make her feel the same, imagine the guilt as you know you’re not supposed to fall in love. You’re not supposed to have emotional attachments, you’re not supposed to break your code. Imagine the desire to be with this woman of your dreams, imagine yourself knowingly breaking your rules simply to be with her. Imagine the rush of her feeling the same, imagine the fear of the secret coming out as you marry her in a candid ceremony.

Imagine you having visions and nightmares of your mother dying, and being unable to rush to her aid. Imagine pleading with your mentor, the older brother that the man raising you has become, only for him to deny you the opportunity. Imagine the stress, the anxiety, the fear. Imagine yourself, yet again bending the rules to finally rescue her. Imagine the terror when you find out your visions were premonitory, as you learn your mother was captured under torture. Imagine you sneaking into the place where she’s being held captive, only for her to be so weak she dies in your arms. The woman who was your entire world for the first nine years of your life, whom you have not seen for a decade is gone. You promised to free her, and you failed. 

Imagine yourself, blinded by rage and sorrow, seeing red as you slaughter the entire village responsible for her demise. Even the innocents are killed off, even the children.

Imagine yourself in a battle, your adversary intent on killing you. Imagine you being unfocused, furious, and out of your league. Imagine him sneering at you, jeering, mocking you. Imagine yourself aiming for his head, trying so hard to take him down. He’s already wounded your mentor, and you want revenge. Instead, he outmatches you with ease, twirling your weapon out of your hand and dismembering you. As if it was naught but air, he has cut through and severed your right arm from your body. You are saved, but scarred and a grudge is growing within you. An urge to kill him, to punish him for embarrassing and decimating you.

Imagine yourself being nineteen years old, motherless, married, and thrown into war. Imagine yourself leading an army of men whom you become close to, who you are proud to call your brothers in arms. Imagine being forced to watch them die, imagine having all their lives on your conscience, imagine being expected to behave like a responsible adult. Then imagine being placed in the position of mentoring, and raising, a child of your own. Imagine having a fourteen year old girl dumped into your lap, to teach right and wrong when you’re still just a kid yourself. Imagine you being expected to act as a parental figure, imagine you being expected to be mature enough to make this girl turn out okay. Imagine you have to teach this child to lead squadrons as your war commander, imagine yourself forced to instruct her how to cope and deal with the losses of life when you can barely manage yourself.

Imagine trying so hard not to become attached, imagine sneaking around on your tiptoes not to expose your secret marriage. Imagine feeling like you always have to hide your true self to live up to expectations, and still never feeling like you’re enough. Imagine this older man who has been somewhat distantly watching over you entering your life, imagine him being kind, and understanding, and you begin to depend upon him. You share more with him than anyone else, perhaps even your wife. You view him as a role model, finally a fitting father figure to guide you through life. Imagine him gradually becoming all the more important to you, and your life.

Imagine your mentor, your brother within the convent betraying you. Imagine him feigning death, imagine him lying to your face on behalf of the schemes of your superiors. Imagine you, believing he’s dead, mourning the man who has despite any shortcomings become your best friend, your hero. Imagine you finding out he is not only alive, but he purposely let you believe he was dead because your emotional reaction was necessary to sell the hoax. Imagine realizing he played with your feelings, he used your weakness to his own benefit. Imagine yourself trying to justify it, but unable to dismiss the seeds of doubt that have been sawn.

Imagine the child, this girl you’ve been tasked with mentoring for two full years of war and death, this girl you have accepted as a younger sister, is suddenly suspected of carrying out a terrorist attack. Imagine how the entire religious group you’re a part of point their fingers at her. Imagine them turning against her one by one, even your brother stays silent on the matter. Imagine your despair, your discontent as she is expelled from the convent, from the only family she has ever known. Imagine yourself finally hunting down the actual culprit, only to find it’s somebody your sister considered a close friend. Imagine your rage, as you realize she too has been betrayed by people within the circle that was supposed to be a sanctuary. 

Imagine your relief as you are told your sister is let back into the order, that you salvaged her status and cleared her name, only for her to walk away. Imagine knowing you did everything to prove her innocence, and still she leaves. Imagine yourself, and your already self internalized insecurities as she turns her back on you. Everyone always leaves you, everyone lies to you. Imagine blaming yourself, believing that had you only done better, she would have remained by your side. Imagine her disappearing without a trace, and when you finally do meet up with her again after what seems like an eternity, she shoots you down. She’s distant, and while she is only being professional, you take it as a sign that she has moved on. That you were never as important to her, as she was to you.

Imagine your father figure being kidnapped by the adversary who took your hand whom you have now targeted as an enemy, a nemesis of sorts. Imagine you coming to the rescue, goaded by the enemy as he professes you are worthless, you cannot harm him. Imagine yourself snapping, finding strength in your anger and your hatred towards this smug, snarling menace. To his shock, you best him. You pay him back, cutting off both his hands as retribution as you disarm him. He’s helpless, on his knees, and you know you should spare him. You have been taught to value compassion within the convent, your religion doubles down on it. But your father figure implores you to kill the nemesis. You falter, but your hands move. He repeats the request, and you give in, beheading the enemy. The unarmed, harmless old man whom you were supposed to take into captivity. Still, your father figure reassures you you did good.

Now, imagine those same prophetic visions you used to have of your mother’s death returning, only to target your wife. You already doubt the sister you raised, you already doubt your own mentor and brother. You can’t turn to your convent for help, as you’re still married in secrecy and to admit that would have you expelled. When you ask the religious leader for help in a cryptic manner, he blatantly tells you to let go, to let whomever you’re worried about fade. You learn that your wife is pregnant, and while it is worrisome, you’re also overjoyed. And frightened, seeing as your visions foretell your wife will die in childbirth. 

You’re desperate, and as you share your fears with the only person you feel you can trust - your father figure - he begins to persuade you that the path you’re on is insufficient, if you want to save your wife and child. You begin to doubt the dogma you have been taught, the moral code that has been drilled into you, and you doubt everyone around you, even the wife you wish to save. Again and again, you are let down, as your convent requests you to spy on your father figure because of his politically powerful position. Imagine you knowing it’s against their religion, but you reluctantly agree as it’s your brother asking you to go through with it.

Imagine your father figure slowly but thoroughly beginning to shift your world view, insinuating that he has powers to save your wife. Imagine you buying into these suggestions, and even as you find out that he is a literal demon spawn - a murderer, a psychopath, a sadist, a monster - you hesitate to call him out. Imagine you desperate to do the right thing in sharing what you have learnt with your superiors at the convent, only for the one leader who trusts you the least to yet again ask you to stay behind rather than be helpful. 

You are tormented, desperate and break down in tears as you contemplate whether keeping this dangerous man alive, the man you admired, to save your wife is worth it. You give in, because in the end, you are selfish and your wife means more to you than anything else. Her life is worth a thousand others. Hence, you rush to your father figure’s aid, at first trying to beg for his life, only to hear this supposedly saintly religious leader tell you it’s just to kill your father figure. Your father figure who appears weak, disarmed, on the brink of death. When you the leader moves in to finish the job and execute your father figure, you step in and you partake in the murder of the superior whom you already disliked.

Disfigured by the struggle with the now dead religious figurehead, your father figure notes that you are full of guilt and regret, as he tells you you did good. He praises your actions, and tells you that as long as you follow his orders, and his dogma, he will help you save your wife. You accept the offer, and you know deep down that you have just taken a path you can never renege on. Your father figure asks you to murder in his name, to be his silent assassin. You are sent to purge the convent you were tutored in, ordered to kill everyone in sight as a religiously targeted genocide - spare no one. You act on autopilot, without autonomy. This is a job, and it’s necessary to save your wife. Nothing else matters, and you follow your orders. You kill everyone, even the children. You tell yourself death is a kinder fate than life within this sect, which you now think this religious order to be.

Imagine yourself reporting in, and being dispatched to kill again. You relent, but when the deed is done your, guilt and regret catches up with you. You realize you have become a murderer, a monster, the blood of the innocent soaking your hands. You realize that while perhaps you can justify the deaths of the problematic political leaders you’ve just slain as unavoidable, the children haunt you. You think of your wife, and your own child, and tell yourself even as you weep that this is for a good cause. Imagine knowing you spoke to your wife just after you murdered those children, assuring her everything will be alright, and now you have to reassure yourself that what you said wasn’t a lie. 

Imagine your wife showing up out of nowhere, so close to the crime scene. Imagine her being shaken, panicking as she reveals your brother told her you have murdered children. Imagine you for some reason not understanding why that’s troubling her, when it was a necessary sacrifice to secure her survival. You admit to everything you have done, that whatever your brother told her, you did it for her. You tell her you refuse to watch her die, you refuse to lose her. Imagine her backing away from you in horror, and above all else, you feel enraged. She tells you she can’t believe you, she can’t stay with you anymore. She can’t accept you as you are. You are furious. You have broken every rule in the book, crossed every line imaginable, and she rejects you? You can’t accept it, and when you realize she has brought your brother with her - knowing he is intent on stopping you, whatever the cost - you refuse to believe her profession that she was unaware of his tagging along.

You see red, and you choke your wife. You choke her, even as she tearfully begs you to stop, as she tells you she loves you. You don’t listen, you can’t hear her words. You don’t trust her. Finally, you come to your senses and let her go. She crumbles to a heap, unconscious and you feel the weight of the blame, the guilt on your shoulders. Instead, you redirect the remorse towards your brother. You accuse him of being the root of all evil, the reason for all the atrocities you have committed. You make him into a figurehead for the sect, the cult you now believe to have brainwashed you. Imagine him telling you that he will kill you, if he needs to. Imagine you lunching at him, both of you fighting viciously. You want to see him dead, you want to punish him for all of your sins.

Imagine you coming to a stalemate, him offering one last warning. You disobey it, ignore it - and pay the price. He cuts off both your legs, and your remaining flesh arm. You shriek at him, and in that moment you loathe him with your entire being. You despise him, even as you use your only remaining limb, your prosthetic arm, to drag yourself towards him. Except you’re lying face down on pyring ashes, a lake of lava nipping at the exposed stumps of your legs. And in a second, you're set ablaze. It’s scorching, searing, agonizing as the flames eat away your clothes. Then your hair. Then your flesh; leaving gaping wounds in its wake as it devours you alive. You writhe, and moan, and try to plead as you reach towards your brother for salvation - for mercy. He just said he loved you, didn’t he? He still walks away, leaving you to burn. Leaving you for dead.

But you don’t die. 

As if by some horrible, cruel twist of fate you live. Your father figure comes for you, he picks you up, he brings you back to a makeshift medical facility to patch you up. You are given no anesthesia, and as robotic aids perform the lifesaving surgery on your ailing body, you feel every single, agonizing rip, tear, cut and probe. They wrench mechanical prosthetics into the stumps of your limbs, into your severed nerve endings. They dress you in a harsh bodysuit that rubs your already sizzled skin raw. Wires and tubes are inserted into your chest, your throat, your stomach. 

Eventually, the pain becomes too much but you remain conscious, remain in limbo. Finally, you receive a helmet to cover your face. It protects your scorched retinas, your charred esophagus with pressurized oxygen. Its lenses are red, and for the rest of your life, you will view the world around you through a crimson hue. You’re no longer breathing on your own. Something else is breathing for you, forcing your singed lungs to inhale and exhale rhythmically. You are strapped down, even as you are brought into a standing position to face your solemn father figure.

Then you remember how you ended up here. Your wife. Your everything, the woman you sold your soul to protect. She’s nowhere to be seen, and you find yourself both alarmed and confused through the haze of your pain. You speak, but the voice is not your own. You ask for her, shocked by the mechanism that now speaks for you and its brash, deep tone. You need to see her, even this hellish torment is worth it as long as you know she’s safe. As long as you know she made it out alive. You ask your father figure, but he reminds you of what you did to her. You hurt her, you choked her. You killed her, he says. 

Just like that. 

She’s dead. 

She’s gone. 

Despite everything you’ve done, every life you’ve taken, every crime you committed in her name. You wanted power, you wanted recognition, you wanted more - but not without her by your side. She’s lost. You will never see her again, you will never get to meet your child. You are trapped in a walking iron lung, a prison of your own making. You are scarred, warped, twisted, with countless lives on your conscience which you cannot write off as slights. You murdered your friends, your family, your convent - small children - in her name. When you finally could have had a future with her, you messed it up. You want to blame your brother, the religious order, the sister you raised, even your father figure. 

But you can’t. 

It’s all on you.

You’re alone. 

You have driven away everyone, you have killed the person who meant the most to you. You have nothing, you deserve nothing. You have poisoned and diminished what little joy you had to cling to. Imagine yourself, broken, battered, barely alive. Imagine yourself, now a murderer, a monster; a selfish, lost little boy who’s only just turned twenty two. Your life is in ruins, your wife is gone by your hand. Your child died with her. Your sister might as well have been executed, your brother left you to burn. You have fulfilled your own prophecy- You were the key to your wife’s demise, not her salvation. You are to blame, you are the reason, you did this. You can blame no one else. Only you.

_You_ are Anakin Skywalker, and you will live with this knowledge for the rest of your life.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wanted to write something deep I guess? Mostly, I just wanted to showcase the many reasons Anakin fell. I don't condone what he did, I am no apologist for his mistakes, but he was groomed by Palpatine. He was struggling with PTSD and several other mental issues as a result of his upbringing in slavery, as well as his mother's death. Basically, imagine yourself in Anakin's place. It's not hard to see why, or how, an unstable young man could fall so far. Every time I realize Anakin was the same age as my little brother when he became Vader, it hits home how early his life was destroyed. He had an entire future, and it was all snuffed out by his own poor choices. Also, it's an insight into the fact that Vader is Anakin. He knows it, and he always will. 
> 
> Enjoy, if you can say that.


End file.
